Counts Law Group

Cobb County agreed to pay political activist Amy Barnes $100,000 to settle a federal claim that police had violated her rights by detaining, arresting and jailing her after she yelled an epithet at officers who had detained a burglary suspect.  

Barnes' vocal protest on Easter Sunday in 2012 as she biked to the store for butter led police to jail her for nearly 24 hours. Barnes faced charges of disorderly conduct for more than a year before Cobb County State Court Judge Melodie Clayton dismissed them after a bench trial.

The Counts Law Group and Ken Hodges represented her in securing a dismissal of the criminal charge. Cynthia Counts and Gerald Weber represented Barnes in the federal suit that led to this settlement agreement.

"We're glad to see this matter settled," Cynthia Counts told the Fulton Daily Report. "Ms. Barnes' comments to the police are offensive, but the court properly found that they did not constitute fighting words as a matter of law. Any application of the disorderly conduct statute to her conduct is an infringement of her First Amendment right to free speech. And it's a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government cannot prohibit the expression of any idea simply because an officer or even society finds that idea offensive or disagreeable."

Barnes told WABE that she plans to use some of her settlement money to go to law school.

A Fulton County judge has ruled that a whistleblower’s emails, which had contended that a former employer’s contracting activities might constitute fraud, were protected speech under Georgia’s Anti-SLAPP statute.

                The well-crafted order by State Court Judge Wesley Tailor against Torres Advanced Enterprise Solutions, LLC (Torres) was issued Oct. 22. It led the company to voluntarily dismiss its libel suit against former employee Christopher G. Herman, who was represented in the defamation case by Counts Law Group (CLG).

                Mr. Herman worked for Torres for several years before he was terminated in January 2012. The next month, Torres began negotiations for a possible joint-venture with Pinnacle Group (Pinnacle), a labor supplier in Kampala, Uganda. Torres-Pinnacle competed for and won a $25 million Department of State contract to provide guard services for the U.S. Embassy in Kampala, Uganda. Torres subsequently began performing on the contract, but the company never finalized its joint venture with Pinnacle.

                Mr. Herman maintained that Torres had made a practice of illegally cutting out their joint venture partners. After his termination, he was deposed in another case in which the plaintiff, Sabre International Security, claimed that Torres froze the company out of remuneration in their joint venture.

                Mr. Herman also sent emails regarding his concerns to the attorney in Uganda serving as Torres’ local counsel. Moreover, he had an ongoing email correspondence with U.S. Department of Defense officials and investigators regarding his concerns.

                His emails to Torres’ local counsel prompted their libel claim against him. On behalf of Mr. Herman, CLG asserted that his emails were protected speech under the Anti-SLAPP Act, made “in connection with an issue under consideration or review by a legislative, executive, or judicial body, or any other official proceeding authorized by law.”

                Judge Tailor agreed, concluding, “The evidence is undisputed that Herman contacted an official before sending the disputed emails in an effort to instigate a governmental investigation of Torres’ purported business practices.  That the government showed some interest in pursuing the matter is demonstrated by the April 2014 email exchange between Herman and (federal Industrial Security Specialist Brian) Linnane.  Further, Torres is a governmental contractor vying for government security contracts in sensitive foreign arenas funded by public funds, thus making the content of the communications of public concern.” 

                A day after the ruling favoring Mr. Herman, Torres voluntarily dismissed its libel claim.

ATLANTA (November 10) - Fulton County Judge Jerry Baxter apologized in court Monday morning, saying he erred Friday in restraining WAGA-TV FOX 5 from publishing a news story about a threat a witness received about his testimony in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial.

The judge’s reversal came after reading what he described as a well-written brief on prior restraint and the First Amendment submitted on Sunday by the Counts Law Group. He had issued the restraining order at the request of District Attorney Paul Howard on Friday.

The court entered the restraining order over the objections of FOX's in-house counsel Carolyn Forrest just a few minutes before the story, which featured a recording of the threatening phone call, was scheduled to be aired.

Judge Baxter reversed his ruling in court Monday even before media attorneys who had assembled made their arguments, admitting he had no legal basis to stop publication of the report.

Cynthia Counts of The Counts Law Group, who wrote the brief and represented FOX 5 in the matter, said Monday: "By ordering FOX 5 not to air truthful information that it had lawfully obtained, Judge Baxter entered a prior restraint violating the most fundamental right of the press; that is, the right to report on matters of significant public concern,” specifically the threats against a witness who had testified in the Atlanta Public Schools corruption trial.

The Georgia Court of Appeals is suggesting there may be occasions where parents may be found legally negligent and liable for what their children post on the internet.

With today’s heightened sensibilities about cyber-bullying, this case, Boston et al. v. Athearn et al., raises very interesting questions about the limits of parental responsibility for the online behavior of their children.

The case involves middle school students in Kennesaw, Ga., Dustin Athearn and Melissa Snodgrass, who conspired to create a fake Facebook page for a fellow student they didn’t like, Alex Boston. They then  presented it as her real Facebook page. The page contained false statements that Ms. Boston was racist, sexually active and involved in drug activities.

The victim determined who had created the page based on a picture posted, and school officials, notified by her parents, intervened. The students who created the page confessed and were placed on in-school suspension, and their parents were notified.

However, the offending page wasn’t taken down and the students who created it continued to access it. Apparently, the page was not taken down until 11 months later, after the Bostons, according to their attorney, appeared on CNN to tell their story, and Facebook then removed it.

Georgia law is well settled that parents are not responsible for wrongs committed by their children except in cases where the negligence of the child is imputed to the parent, or it's based on the negligence of the parent—like sending a 6-year-old to school with a loaded gun.

But here, the Court of Appeals seems to be suggesting that there may be circumstances in which an Internet-enabled computer, like a gun, can be an instrument of harm. The fact that Dustin Athearn’s parents never looked at the page or took any action to have it taken down, the court suggested, could be interpreted by a reasonable jury as evidence of negligence.

In a world where adolescents are constantly online, the most challenging question: What is realistic in determining the limits of parental responsibility for the digital activity of their children?